Bridezillas- getting married to have a wedding, not the converse

[Moanranger]

I got married 20+ years ago & while we wanted to have a nice wedding, we knew the whole malarky could quickly spiral out of control so we spent our money on decent catering, champagne & music & not so much on dresses, & no bridesmaids stuff - also no hen/stag nights (ugh!)
My younger friends and employees seem to have completely lost their minds, their ability to add up, etc, etc. It seems that no one, even the most sensible down to earth couples are able to get married without completely over-doing it. One friend of mine is hemorraghing money (her words) but keeps on with the expensive add ons. I try to drop hints - are you getting married to have a wedding or having a wedding to get married? They will end up starting married life horribly in debt, stressed and possibly resentful.

One of my staff members is planning to get married in his wife's country & then move their while she quits work and he supports them - and his job skills are not transferable. He was then blithely discussing honeymoon options, including Hawaii, a place me & OH managed to get to after 18 years of marriage. It is so out of my realm of understanding I do not know what to say, sound like an old fogey to them, I suppose, but to me they are creating nothing but problems with their unrealistic expectations.

Anyone else noticed this??

Well, you can't say anything. Smile and nod; these are their choices, unrealistic or not, and they will be the ones whose dreams either work out or not.

But I agree with your main point about over-elaborate weddings. The set ones I have been to have varied wildly in terms of style, size and lavishness, but what they have had in common is that they were the slightly posher (that's not quite the right word, perhaps I mean smarter, dressier) versions of the couple/families' normal way of entertaining, rather than an attempt at an fantasy that was actually rather remote from what they were like or comfortable with. Stressiness seems to be linked to that too.

And I definitely agree that it is insane to put yourself into significant debt for one party.

I think it's madness myself. If I had thousands to spend I can think of so many great things to spend it on. I would consider spending money on a wedding a waste.
I'm not really even into the marriage aspect of it either, so for me the whole idea of a giant expensive wedding is baffling.

I am currently arranging mine and DP's wedding, and it is not running into crazy money.

I want a marriage and couldnt care less about the wedding really,Just want to be married and think i will regret it if i dont have a "proper" wedding. I have a friend that is getting married a few months after and is doing my head in!!

"have you done, this and that" "oh you haven't got long"

She has booked the entire hotel they are getting married in and it seems to be a 3 day event, day before has entertainment,then wedding, and day after big breakfast with all the guests. Madness!

However she is not getting into debt with it, just a thrifty saver and she is a "showman" hers is actually a small affair with only 130 guests.

I got married a couple of years ago, and certainly didn't spend crazy money. There was no stag / hen night, no bridesmaids, homemade invitations, etc. However, I can see how it is easy to spend £££ when people (ie. wedding suppliers and family) are constantly bombarding you with all the things you are "supposed" to have. I certainly had to resist a lot of family pressure - we only had thirty guests, for example, which caused problems with my parents. My mother was embarrassed that it would reflect badly on her and my dad that we were doing things on a budget and not inviting extended family - she expected me to spend lots of money and invite every single blood relation to make her look good (though she made it clear that she wouldn't contribute to the cost- not that I would have dreamed of asking her to). Often wedding planning is about managing other people's expectations - for some reason everyone thinks that they have the right to express opinions and make demands when it comes to other people's weddings.

Personally, I found wedding planning to be the most boring, tedious thing I have ever done. I don't understand why women supposedly dream of being a bride since being a little girl, and get so bogged down in the detail of it. One of the best things about my wedding day itself was waking up and knowing that the bloody planning was finally over.

I had a massive big wedding, rented a castle, had a sit down meal for 120 with free flowing alcohol, the whole works. It was worth every penny, everyone who came had a fantastic time. So I have no problem with people who have big weddings, I think they're wonderful. I like all weddings to be honest, any excuse for a nice dress and a party.

I don't agree with getting into massive debt for it though, I think that's the insane bit. It was worth the money for us as we had it available, but it wouldn't have been worth having a debt that we were still paying off or anything like that. I can see how it happens though, as soon as suppliers got a sniff of us having more than bare minimum to spend there was constant upsell pressure. And wedding magazines sell "the dream" as well, and it normalises the huge amounts of money.

Personally, I think getting into debt for a wedding is bonkers.

However, saying that, we had a huge wedding three years ago, and if I could do it all again, I would. I wasn't bridezillaish, because I very much put our guests comfort and convenience first and I was quite laid back about the whole thing, but I did have a few of the things that other people would probably consider to be uneccesary extras.

I could have been accused of this 'getting married to have a wedding, not to have a marriage' thing that you are on about, because I did get very engrossed in wedding planning, but it was fun! I enjoyed planning it very much, but that certainly wasn't the reason I was getting married.

I find it quite insulting when people suggest that those who have big weddings are getting married more for the wedding than the marriage. The two things are not mutually exclusive, you can have a wedding that costs tens of thousands and still be very much in love.

Completely agree with Outraged - and I should add that, at least in my limited experience (c.15 weddings in the past 5 years), it's actually been those couples who haven't gone wild with the planning and the budget that have struck me more as those getting married simply for the wedding. At least that's what the divorce rate suggests.

"I find it quite insulting when people suggest that those who have big weddings are getting married more for the wedding than the marriage."

Agree. Really, it's nobody else's business if a couple want to spend a fortune on a fancy wedding. I think it's madness to get into debt for one day, but believe it or not it isn't compulsory to incur debt to have an expensive wedding...

To me, it is just as offensive to comment that the brides you know have 'lost their minds' in arranging what you consider over the top celebrations as it would be to say, 'they're only having a few butties in the church hall, it's not a proper wedding'.

As a guest, all you have to do is accept or decline the invitation and be nice on the day. It's really not necessary to have a catbumface episode over the arrangements or the cost.

It seems to me there is an ongoing frugality competition on Mumsnet for who had the cheapest (and therefore most meaningful ) wedding.

I think there have always been bridezilllas. I had a friend who spent 20K on a wedding with the result that they were forced to rent a grotty flat rather than use the money for a desposit for a mortgage. The sad thing is that many people who have expensive weddings get divorced.

We spent 2K on our wedding and in someways I feel sad as I will never have a flashy wedding. However we have a second house and are living comfortably ten years later.

"The sad thing is that many people who have expensive weddings get divorced."

Proportionally more than people who have cheap weddings though?

It's sad that anyone who has a wedding gets divorced. It makes no difference whether £2k or £50k was spent on the wedding, divorce is not a nice thing for anyone.

Being left with debt for a wedding that didn't work out isn't great, but then nor is being left with debt when you have a marriage made in heaven.

As has been said, not all expensive weddings incur debt, and debt is proportional to income anyway. A £2k debt can be more unmanageable than a £20k debt, it depends on an individual couples circumstances.

Frankly it's noone elses business. OP you sound a bit jealous to me.

Oh FFS. I'm sick of the prevailing attitude on Mumsnet that unless your wedding cost the princely sum of £3.50 and entailed a) the bride wearing a third-hand 'vintage' dress bought from a charity shop, b) your guests bringing their own packed lunches and c) you personally gluing every last diamante and ribbon onto your home-made invitations, then you're either a bridezilla or are just in it for the occasion, rather than the marriage. It's rude and it's offensive. And if anybody can show me a genuine statistic which says that people who spend over £Xk on their wedding are more likely to get divorced than those who spend little, then I will eat an ACTUAL fascinator.

OP - YABU.

I quite disapprove of big weddings...BUT I also believe it's each to their own on that score.

Why do you disapprove of big weddings Pictish? Genuine interested question.

I don't understand what there is to disapprove of. Do you mean big as in number of guests, or big as in expensive?

Wholeheartedly agree with what viv said.

It's a generational thing. Weddings have changed, I think, over the last 20 years. I don't think it matters too much what you do, as long as you don't complain. I can't stand it when people whinge about the clear consequences of their own choices (and not just where weddings are concerned). So if you borrow money in order to have a massive wedding, live with the resultant debt, inability to buy a house, lack of holidays etc without going on about it.

That said, the pressure some of the current big wedding trend ends up putting on others can be a bit much: the family fall-outs, the demands on friends to shell out for extravagant hen and stag dos etc. But again, everyone has a free choice whether to participate or not.

I'm uncomfortable with people people feeling under pressure to (a) get into debt to pay for a huge wedding they can't afford or (b) have a more lavish wedding than they want, but if people have the money and that's how they choose to spend it, I'd say it's their call.

I wouldn't judge someone for buying a house that's bigger than they need. I think a wedding is similar.

I do get fed up with hearing constant updates of wedding plans - I think it's self indulgent to assume that everyone wants to hear daily updates of wedding plans, pregnancies etc

Um...okay...I will try to answer that without upsetting anyone.

I am not particularly interested in weddings. I never have been. It was never one of my childhood fantasies, for example. I have never held much faith in marriage I suppose, as my parents' marriage was not a happy one.
Divorce statistics prove that I'm not unrealistic in my thoughts...so I guess I don't view getting married as a good reason to blow tens of thousands. Even if you have got it. So many marriages end up on the scrap heap nowadays.

No other party we throw in our lives tends to cost as much as our wedding, and I can think of more deserving achievements to celebrate.

Those are my thoughts....but I certainly don't imagine that other people will, or should, feel the same.

That's fair enough Pictish, you are allowed your own opinion!

I think I justified spending as much on a wedding as we did because we wouldn't have to get into debt to pay for it, and it was going to make no difference whatsoever to our chances of a successful marriage whether we had a small budget wedding or a big budget wedding.

There are other significant things that are worthy of celebration, but some of our guests came from the other end of the country to attend, which I don't think they woud have done for the birth of each child that lives in this part if the country, or every graduation or whatever. We have such a large and spread out family, and many of our closest friends don't exactly live locally, that having ALL of them together under the same roof at one time is something that probably won't happen again until our funerals! Making that as enjoyable as possible for everyone was worth the money to me.

A wedding should suit the two people involved and whatever makes them happy is great. However ...

... bringing up girls to think it's the greatest day of their lives really is a shite attitude

... the female (and the mother of the female) participant making all decisions is also crap, especially when their decisions are just automatically presumed to be more valid than the male participants

So size isn't the issue for me but attitude certainly is.

I agree OP. Due to a few problems with delivery I didn't have my dress until 2 weeks before my wedding. Certainly didn't stress about it though. It wouldn't be any less of a marriage if I didn't have a specific dress.

I don't think that the cost of a wedding has to equate with a ludicrously Bridezilla attitude and I've attended quite a few expensive family weddings in the past. It doesn't seem unreasonable to choose a lovely venue, treat your guests to delicious food and wear a beautiful dress if you can afford it and won't go into debt for years to come as a result and I'm not sure quite what is served by opting for rather grim alternatives merely to prove you can get married for a fiver.

What I do object to, because I don't think the OP is entirely U, are those weddings which appear to be been constructed by the wedding industry and which contain all sorts of elements that really aren't necessary to enhance the day and which just add yet more cost without proportionate return so far as the bride and groom or guests are concerned.

I've mentioned this before but I do know someone who is currently endlessly planning her wedding and is under quite ridiculous stress about things like "themes" and whether the favour boxes will be the right shade of pink. She has very little money but her entire wedding has been planned around bridal magazines and she's convinced herself that if she doesn't lay on a 3-ring circus, she'll be judged accordingly. Because of the complexities of this wedding, she started planning it so long ago that she's now bought three dresses - one no longer fitted and couldn't be sensibly altered, one she "went off" after seeing alternatives over the next year and the third, hopefully, is the one she'll wear on the day. If all this made her happy I'd be delighted but right now, she's horribly stressed and I fear that the day itself is going to be a series of disappointments and unrealised expectations.

Bridezillas are spoiled mad women obessed with their day. The amount of money spent does not make a bridezilla - we spent about 18k, and had a fantastic party that all remember fondly. A huge chunk of money for a celebration but you know what? It was our money and we spent it as we wanted. Should we maybe have kept it in case we divorce later?

I have a dear friend who did the wedding-in-a-castle shebang.
8 years on they split acrimoniously...and now 10 year later, both are still paying for that magical day. Even though they pretty much hate each other.
We laugh about it tbh....what else can you do?

Our own wedding was five weeks in the planning and cost a grand. I don't want a chocolate medal and a pat on the head...but my own dh and I have faced hairy scary times in our marriage as well, and we even split for a while.
That's the reality of it these days - we are no longer expected to stay in unhappy marriages, so divorce is very common.

I think the honeymoon is where the dosh should go.

If we'd had any money at all at the time, that's what we'd have spent it on. A month in South America in a motor home.